1. Morning walks. This time of year, they can be dark, cold, and windy, but I still love them so much.
My favorite tree in our neighborhood, an ash
2. Good people. They are everywhere, and I’m lucky to call some of them my friends, my family. When “the shit hits the fan,” you learn who is up to the task, who is going to stick around and help. There will be people you expected more from that will leave you disappointed, but I don’t dwell there for too long. I wish them well and let them go. And the others, the ones who show up and stay, hold space — they are precious. They will make soup or send pie, send cards and texts and leave comments on your posts, bring flowers from their gardens, check in on you, totally understand when you have to cancel plans, give you hugs, and make you laugh.
3. Practice. It is the center of everything, the first and the last thing, the thing I can do poorly or well and it has the same benefits, my soft spot to land, the ground, my refuge.
4. Fall. In particular the color, the slowing down, the light, the quiet.
5. My tiny family, small house, little life. October 9th was Eric and I’s 30th anniversary. I feel so lucky, not just that I found my person and am so happy, but that he feels exactly the same way.
Bonus joy: dark chocolate covered salted caramels, zucchini muffins, falling leaves, color printers, help with the hard things, kitchen counter love notes, books, listening to podcasts, clean sheets, funeral casserole, my heating pad, down blankets and pillows and coats, wool socks, vaccines, stretching, naps, the pool, sitting in the sauna, massage, catching up with friends I haven’t seen in a while, other people’s babies and kids and dogs and gardens, saying what needs to be said, watercolors, trees, trails, garbage people, grocery shopping, clean laundry, texting with Chris and Mom and Chloe’, going to Little Bird Bakeshop with Carrie, lemon poppy seed scones, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.
1. Wisdom from Lucian James: “Every moment matters. In every moment you become the person you want to be, or you surrender to the person you were. In every moment.”
6. Conversation with a Friendfrom Jami Attenberg. “Another approach I have been thinking about is that when I sit down with my pen and journal, I am simply just catching up with a friend. I want that same warm, easy vibe as when you meet up with someone that you are close with but don’t see that often, maybe for coffee or lunch, in a sunny space. You know it’s just going to be a pleasant chat, filling in all the blanks and just checking in and catching up.” Also from Jami, The Questions I Would Ask You.
10. Women on the frontlines of climate change. (video) “Hear from the women who are reshaping climate leadership around the world as policymakers, scientists and activists on the frontlines…join Washington Post Live’s climate summit featuring conversations with USAID administrator Samantha Power and top climate leaders about innovative solutions to tackle a warming planet, the latest global efforts to curb carbon emissions and how women have been disproportionately affected by the climate crisis.”
11. Wisdom from Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse: “Becoming aware of how things change is a useful form of mind training. Letting go of all your attachment to planning, scheduling and expectation will reduce your fear of death considerably. If, during your life, you have never experienced disappointment or failure, when you find yourself at death’s door, you will be terrified. Of course, by then it will be too late for you to do anything for yourself.”
12. What will sustain. “I am a human animal in the autumn of my life and actually, it suits my soul. It’s my vibe. Autumn is older and wiser. She looks at summer’s daydreams and expansive visions, measuring up what she can make with them. What will keep. What will sustain.”
19. Minda Honey Tells Us About Putting Yourself in the Running on Cheryl Strayed’s Dear Sugar. “I’m pleased to share the fourth installment of an occasional series I do in which I invite an author to tell us five things—not only about their most recent book, but about their life too.”
22. The Uncomfortable Truth About Truthfrom Frederick Joseph. “On self-awareness, societal change, and running from honesty.” I kept looking for a paragraph to quote here, but I ended up wanting to quote the entire piece. Also from Frederick, Individual Greedflation Is Destroying Us. “People wanting to become wealthy makes it difficult to hold the wealthy accountable.” In my opinion, Frederick Joseph is one of the most important writers of our time, as he tells the full and terrible truth from a tender heart. He’s also asking for donations to an important cause, Five for Families, because “In NYC, Black and Latino households face food insecurity at rates startlingly higher than white households. As inflation rises, more local pantries close and the need grows exponentially. Which is why this November, we are supporting The Lower East Side Girls Club (LESGC) to help address this crisis head-on.”
24. Nick Cave on “this crazy thing called grief”: “you have every right to be a mess, but let me say this – don’t be a mess all the time, because this planet needs people like you. We need fierce souls with flaming swords that lay open the world to the truth of things – our perilous and impermanent mutuality, our ferocious resilience, and our acute and heartbreaking preciousness.”
27. Discovering aphantasia. I’m fascinated by this, as Eric has it. Knowing he did and what it was explained so much about him.
28. Good stuff from Lion’s Roar: Learning From the Dead (“Carolyn Campbell shares how studying the famous Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France sparked an awareness of death that helped her wake up to life”), and Stop, Soothe, Shift: A 3-Step Practice to Do What Helps (“Zen teacher Vanessa Zuisei Goddard shares her simple three-step practice to stop, soothe, and shift in the face of suffering”), and Meditations on Buddhanature (“Four Buddhist teachers share concise instructions for recognizing the luminous nature of mind”), and You Are Already Dying (“The most profound meditation, says Joan Halifax, is contemplating the certainty of your own death”), and How to Be a Friend Until the End (“According to Frank Ostaseski, offering care to someone who’s dying is like meditation: there’s no one right way, but practice helps, and so do basic guidelines”), and Death: The Greatest Teacher (“The Buddha said the greatest of all teachings is impermanence. Its final expression is death. Buddhist teacher Judy Lief explains why our awareness of death is the secret of life. It’s the ultimate twist”).
29. We’re all lurkers now. “‘As more people have been confronted with the consequences of constant sharing, social media has become less social and more media—a constellation of entertainment platforms where users consume content but rarely, if ever, create their own,’ a recent Insider piece explains. ‘Influencers, marketers, average users, and even social-media executives agree: Social media, as we once knew it, is dead.'”
33. You Don’t Have to Be Complicit in Our Culture of Destructionon The New York Times, an interview with Robin Wall Kimmerer. “This beautiful gift of attention that we human beings have is being hijacked to pay attention to products and someone else’s political agenda. Whereas if we can reclaim our attention and pay attention to things that really matter, there a revolution starts.”
34. Slama Land Arton Instagram. “straw sculptures – art – nature – ecology – love – utopia – society – sustainable – movement – fire.”
35. A song of believingby Brian Doyle. “Look, I know all too well that the story of the world is entropy, things fly apart, we sicken, we fail, we grow weary, we divorce, we are hammered and hounded by loss and accidents and tragedies, we slide away into the dark oceans behind the stars. But I also know that we are carved of immense confusing holiness; that the whole point for us is grace under duress; and that you either take a flying leap at nonsensical illogical unreasonable ideas like marriage and marathons and democracy and divinity, or you huddle behind the brooding wall.”
37. Attorney General Merrick Garland: The 60 Minutes Interview(video). “People can argue with each other as much as they want and as vociferously as they want. But the one thing they may not do is use violence and threats of violence to alter the outcome,” he said. “American people must protect each other. They must ensure that they treat each other with civility and kindness, listen to opposing views, argue as vociferously as they want, but refrain from violence and threats of violence. That’s the only way this democracy will survive.”
40. Losing a Dog Is the Hardest Thing. “For 38 months, Rowlf brought love, slow meandering walks, and dog ice cream cones into writer Brendan Leonard’s life. And now Rowlf is gone.” If you are one of those people who would say, “what’s the big deal, it’s JUST a dog” you probably should stop reading my blog.
41. 15 Ways to Rewild Yourself. “Nature has always been a place for me to self-soothe. Whether it’s been starting a garden and learning how to tend my heart in the same way I do my plants, or by going on walks in the forest to discover wild herbs and edibles. There’s no denying how therapeutic it is to escape into nature and recalibrate, or as I call it: Rewilding.”
48. I rest in love, a gorgeous poem from Gretchen Schmelzer. “Yet for all of the despair and pain, each morning comes and nature and people don’t give up, and this may be the most beautiful form of art.”
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 